Thursday, March 24, 2016

Mother's Day in England is already behind us for the year, but in the U.S., it will be on Sunday, May 8th.

I've been working on some matching sets for Mother's Day, including greeting cards, address labels and postage stamps.

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The first features a hummingbird and fuchsia bloom that I photographed on our patio. The background was very unappealing - the blank brick wall of my neighbor's house - so instead, I added a texture in a soft mint color.

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The next set features a digital artwork I created in the 3D graphics program Vue, entitled "Field of Bluebonnets".

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The photograph featured in this Mother's Day card was taken by my at Kalalau Lookout on the Na Pali Coast on the island of Kauai when my husband and I were on our honeymoon. We were so lucky to see this rainbow. Even as we stood taking photographs, the mists cleared and the rainbow disappeared! It was truly the photo of a lifetime!

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I enjoy working out in my back yard and am often trying out new plants to see what I can get to bloom. I loved this purple and lilac Aquilegia, or Columbine but alas it wasn't too happy in my garden and didn't last long.

When I made this card with my photo, it made me determined to try and grow some more this year! Such pretty blooms!

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There are some wonderful designers on Zazzle and I had fun browsing through the Mother's Day cards available. I'm going to show you some of them here.

The first is this pretty watercolor floral Mother's Day card from 'origamiprints'. What I particularly like about the design is that you can replace the sample image with a photo of your own family, making it a very personal gift.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Now we have officially got "the Holidays" out of the way, I've been adding some Valentine's related items to my Zazzle store.

My favorite new item has been this Couples Mug or Lovers' mug set, featuring a new digital artwork I created in DAZ3D that I titled "Night on the Town." I was able to split the original artwork so that the man is on one mug, and the woman is on the other.

I really love the vintage appeal of this vintage illustration Victorian
Happy Valentine's Day holiday floral design featuring traditional love
and romance flowers. Antique ephemera with a beautiful bouquet of
blooming crimson red roses in a gold basket just picked from the garden.
Designed by Yesterday Cafe.

These t-shirts are great, and will certainly make a statement when you head out together but I have to say it..... aren't they the wrong way round? Shouldn't HIS t-shirt say "SHE is my better half" and shouldn't HER t-shirt say "HE is my other half"?

Sunday, August 3, 2014

When I'm not working at my day job, or working on my digital art and now pastel painting projects, I like to garden for wildlife.

My garden is registered as a Monarch Waystation and I've got lots of tropical milkweed, as that is the host plant of the Monarch butterfly, and the only plant that Monarch caterpillars will eat.

I was in the garden this weekend when I saw a Monarch butterfly flitting around. I grabbed my camera, determined to get a photograph of it.

When I looked at the photograph full size on my computer, I could hardly believe my luck! Not only had I captured the butterfly, but right next to it on the same plant, there was a healthy Monarch caterpillar, munching away on a leaf!

I edited the photo by blending it with some texture for a more painterly effect and I'm very happy with how it came out. It's been added to several items in my store, including this iPad sleeve.

My final choice, among the myriad of Monarch designs on Zazzle, is this great bumper sticker from GardenDelightsArts which urges people to plant milkweed, to save the Monarch. I need to get one of these bumper stickers myself!

Sunday, January 5, 2014

When I'm not working at my day job, or working on designs and artwork for my Zazzle store, I'm a keen gardener. I'm proud of the fact that my garden is a certified Wildlife Habitat.

And being the beginning of a new year, I'm all itching to get out in the garden and get working. But it's cold and windy outside today, which is keeping me indoors.

Okay, so we're not buried in snow as much of the country is. But it's windy and in the mid 40's here. Pretty chilly for Texas.

So any gardening I do today will be the armchair variety - looking through catalogs and planning etc.

Then I started thinking that considering I'm such a keen gardener, I don't have much of a selection of gifts for gardeners in my store, other than some items featuring photographs of the birds, butterflies and flowers that I have taken in the garden.

Here's one of my current items, a Macbook Pro sleeve featuring a photo I took of a Swallowtail butterfly on some Dallas Red Lantana:

When I did a simple search for "gifts for gardeners" on Zazzle, I realized how much there is to offer. From three ring binders that can be used for garden journals (how come I never thought of that?) to fridge magnets, T-shirts and aprons. The list is endless.

Here are just some of the wonderful gifts for gardeners I found from the many talented artists and designers on Zazzle:

This three ring binder from TheBindery can be customized with your name and is a great way to keep all your garden notes together.

Monday, December 16, 2013

It's hard to believe Christmas is just around the corner! Are you ready for the holidays? I suppose I'm about as ready as I'm going to be for this year. I had sort of wanted to get more stuff done for my Zazzle store, but you know how it goes... day job gets in the way... life happens...

So just a short post from me today. One thing I was able to do was get some Christmas ornaments in my Zazzle store. Here's one of them - with a beautiful Red Cardinal, one of my favorite birds.

About Me

Originally from England, I am a self-taught artist who now lives with my husband Eric in the Houston area.

I fell in love with art as I was growing up in England and, on moving to the U.S., continued to enjoy working in acrylics and oil pastels to create landscape paintings of the English countryside that I had left behind. However, after we opened our home to a number of furry felines, I stopped creating art for several years.

With long haired cats in the house, keeping the fur out of the paint got to be too much of a challenge!

When my husband first introduced to the 3D digital graphics program Bryce in 2004 a whole new world of artistic possibilities opened up to me!

Since that introduction, I have branched out and expanded my skills and now I use Vue Esprit and DAZ 3D to create art in a variety of styles, including landscapes, equine art and abstracts.

Now I really enjoy creating original artworks that can be framed and hung in a home or gallery, as well as using my designs on the growing variety of fun items available at Zazzle.com and on greeting cards in my store at Greeting Card Universe.

My other interests are gardening and horses. I used to have two horses, Annapolis and Star, but sadly Annapolis died in April 2014, just shy of his 35th birthday. Star is now 24, and is a retired pasture ornament.

I don't blog about horses, but I do maintain a blog about my efforts at creating a serene backyard habitat around our home in my blog at Jayne's Country Garden.